S06.39: Summer 2024 Reads
School’s out for Jen’s summer and Sarah’s in the final stretch so we’re dreaming of romance beach reads and talking about our massive summer TBR piles! There’s something here for everyone — hot librarians, superheroes, heists, funeral homes, wedding planners and baseball players and F1 drivers and, of course, dukes.
Our next read along is Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. It’s Jen’s favorite in the series. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.
If you love a fire hose of romance recommendations, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where 1000 other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Show Notes
Maybe men shouldn’t cover the WNBA, tbh.
All about The electric slide.
You can follow DodoTheBookBitch on Instagram; follow Sarah there to see the scratch-off TBR poster.
Jacque is one our romancelandia faves, and she has a Pride reading challenge for you all. RomanticallyInclined is on Threads reading books with fewer than 100 reviews all through June.
For reviews in advance of publication, your best bet is Kirkus (Jen reviews for them), but you can also try Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly. We also talked about NetGalley and Edelweiss to discover upcoming books.
If you’re in NYC, don’t miss the launch event for Liana de la Rosa’s Isabel and the Rogue next week! She’ll be at The Ripped Bodice with Sarah and Adriana Herrera…and Sophie Jordan will be there, too! Tickets and info here.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Blue Box Press, publishers of Lexi Blake’s My Royal Showmance
available in print, ebook or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or wherever you get your books
Lotte R James, author of A Liaison with Her Leading Lady,
available at in print, ebook, or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books
Ava Miles, author of A Very Un-Shakespeare Romance,
available at in print or ebook with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
S03.2: Summer Reads Interstitial: the "Sarah was Right" edition
We’ve been gone for many weeks, as you know, and during that time we read a whole lot of books. In this, our first interstitial of Season Three, we’ll talk about some of those books…and also Jen will spend some really important time confirming that Sarah is, in fact, right. About everything. That’s canon now.
Next week, we’ll read Fifty Shades of Grey. We'll talk fan fiction, Christian Grey, 1st person POV, billionaires, the early 2010s, why the book mobilized so many readers, why it made so many others angry, and what we talk about when we talk about Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s Season Three. We’re back on our bullsh*t. Find Fifty Shades of Grey at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.
Show Notes
Cats like boxes! Dogs like to chew things! Speaking of Rube Goldberg machines, if you're ever in Chicago, you should really see the one at the Museum of Science and Industry.
Who is the CJ Craig of "Bless her cotton socks" fame, you ask?
Speaking of Vivian Stephens...We mentioned our episode with Steve Ammidown on the books she aquired was one of our favorite episodes, but you should really read this terrific interview with her that was published in the September 2020 issue of Texas Monthly magazine.
The iHeartRadio podcast awards are a thing, and Jen just wants to be recognized.
Milla Vane also writes as Meljean Brook, check out The Iron Duke if you like steampunk. But all of us recommend against using blood as lube.
John Cusack's starring role as a hit man was in the 1997 movie Grosse Point Blank.
LaQuette left a perfect review on Goodreads of Like Lovers Do in case you need more convincing.
Subscribe to Linda's calendar of virtual romance events.
Did we mention there are Fated Mates t-shirts now? Check out the shop at JenReadsRomance for Kelly's romancelandia buttons, stickers, and cards, and her Resistance Buttons shop for Biden Harris 2020 buttons.
Next week, Fifty Shades of Grey. Our next read along book is going to be A Heart of Blood and Ashes. That's the way we want it.
Oh, and this hadn't been announced when we recorded, but Sarah wrote a contemporary novella during a pandemic, and it's coming out September 15th! Preorder Naughty Brits (an anthology with Sophie Jordan, Sierra Simone, Louisa Edwards and Tessa Gratton), wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple or Google.
